If Only Quoting Women Were Enough

We all know we should make an effort to quote more female experts. Women are underrepresented in news coverage — by a ratio of three-to-one, studies consistently show — which both reflects and deepens gender biases in who gets to be considered an authority.

Our perch on the International desk, where we write a news column examining global affairs through political and social science, should, in theory, grant us the perfect opportunity to correct this sort of bias. When we’re able to pull it off, as we did in a recent article on Afghanistan that quoted only women, the positive reaction from readers shows how wide the gender source gap remains, and how gratifying it is to see it briefly close.

But the truth — we are reminded every time we try to quote female experts — is that the gender balance of our articles is only the final step in a process of gender discrimination that begins long before we pick up a phone to begin reporting. We’ve learned to see our role as journalists as important, but also as just the most visible component of a vast social machinery that equates expertise with maleness.

For instance, Twitter is a valuable tool for finding research and researchers. But while it is open to both genders, women often face higher costs for using it, in the form of harassment, particularly sexual threats. Because men can use the platform more freely, their voices and work get a relative boost, making it even harder for women to break through.

Other biases are even more glaring. A 2013 study found that political science papers by women are systematically cited less than those by men. Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, a University of Iowa political scientist, found that women in academia are more likely to get stuck in less prestigious jobs or leave their fields entirely because of structural gender issues like citation biases, straightforward sexism and pressure on women to do committee work while men get to devote time to their research.

The result is that the highest echelons of academia, think tanks and research institutions are dominated by men. So if we go by seemingly objective criteria like seniority or citation counts, the “best” experts will overwhelmingly be men. We can’t fix those imbalances on our own, but we can try to correct for them in our own writing by ignoring seniority and deciding for ourselves whose work is worth quoting. We start by looking offline to find equally qualified — or, often, better qualified — women, by scanning academic journals and asking around for names.

That, unsurprisingly, can rankle people. It can rankle the men who believe we skipped over them unfairly and the institutions that wish to promote their most senior figures. Tellingly, some think tanks that publicize all-female panels also bar junior fellows from speaking to the news media, silencing the women in that role. And it can rankle readers, some of whom inevitably ask a variation of, “Isn’t that just more discrimination?”

This is the challenge of systemic gender bias. No one person can fix it, even with the benefit of a platform as powerful as The New York Times. But conscious efforts to correct for its effects can, at a glance, look unfair because the biases that privilege men, while far more systemic, are often less visible. Last November, over 200 women in national security signed an open letter warning that sexual assault, harassment and “environments that silence, demean, belittle or neglect women” were driving their female colleagues from the field. And a 2015 analysis by Micah Zenko and Amelia M. Wolf found that women were sharply underrepresented in think tank leadership and senior government positions relating to foreign policy and national security.

We haven’t undertaken the kind of rigorous accounting of our sources that Ed Yong and Adrienne LaFrance of The Atlantic have, though we suspect we’d be similarly disappointed by the results. But even if we’ve hardly closed the gender gap in our work, the act of trying isn’t just our responsibility: It has its own benefits. We, and readers, are exposed to ideas and research otherwise obscured by systemic bias. Articles exclusively quoting women register with colleagues, who tell us they will try it themselves. The most rewarding feedback comes from young professional women, who see encouragement amid the many obstacles they face.

These are only symbolic gestures. But perhaps they are a reminder that the gender gap, though so pervasive it can sometimes feel normal, is anything but.

Rebecca Hamilton, an American University assistant law professor, tweeted in response to our recent article, “Such a surreal experience to read a national security article so populated with the voices of female experts.”

It can indeed feel surreal to see women granted the same intellectual weight as men. But it doesn’t need to.

Amanda Taub and Max Fisher write The Interpreter column. Sign up for The Interpreter newsletter at nytimes.com/newsletters.